Martha's Vineyard Part 3. I'm home

I'm home. After following the long range forecast it appeared that my time on the island would be spent with questionable weather. Well apart from the first day, when they got it right, they were way off. Monday it was supposed to be overcast with a 40% chance of rain and they nailed it. It rained hard overnight for about 5 minutes. The rest of the week just got better and better. Wednesday was just spectacular. It was 78 degrees and sunny. I retook many of the pictures I took on the first day. I fell in love with the place. Now I know why all those singer, politicians, artist, actors, journalists, authors, industrialists and other people of fame and note have homes or vacation here. I don't know where to start. How about here

Or here.

Or here.

Or...

I am currently looking for a place to post the entire album of photos since Spaces is biting the big one. Boy did they ruin a nice thing. I will lose many more friends thanks to their shenanigans. I love how they always couch things. They tried to make it sound like they were doing you a big favor every time they changed things and made it more complicated and convoluted (I think I finally spelled it right Beth). They improved it right into extinction. I would have preferred if they had just been honest with us and said, "Hey this blog service is not working for us so we're ending it." I wouldn't have been any happier but at least I would have had more respect for them. But enough of that. Back to Martha's Vineyard.

  

I took a 3 hour bus tour of the island. The tour route circled the perimeter of the island. We only stopped once. It was the place that I most wanted to photograph. It is the islands most famous and gorgeous feature. The clay cliffs located on the opposite side of the island from where I stayed. Unfortunately, unlike the east side of the island which was bathed in sunshine, this side was fogged in.

The cliffs are located in the town formely known until about 8 years ago as Gay Head but is now called the original Indian name of Aquinna. An improvement if you know what I mean. This is what the cliffs are supposed to look like. This is not my photo.

This is what I saw.

 Still it was an awesome site.

Here's A little movie I made on the third morning when I ventured out to get more sunrise pictures but the morning was overcast. It's basically me walking back to the hotel at about 6:45 am. There are more movies to come but I still have many clips to sort through and put together.

I would never travel there during the tourist season. The resident population is about 15,000. Over the summer it can swell by 50 to 70,000. No thanks. The streets are tiny and I have seen Cape Cod during the summer and it's just a mass of people and cars. As far as I'm concerned September is the perfect time. There are still tourist but no very many. The part of the island where I stayed, oak Bluffs and Vineyard Haven which is to the west of Oak Bluffs is where the action is. The rest of the island is where the residents live and where all the large estates of the rich and famous are. They are, for the most part, all secluded. We did see the former residence of Diana Ross and Billy Joel. They were very close to the road. Billy Joel's in particular was on a lake only a couple of hundred yards from the shore and quite visible from the road. It looked pretty modest and blended in with the surrounding homes. I saw this from the tour bus but I was on the other side of the bus. I got a few shots but we were moving along and the windows could have been cleaner. Still it was a great tour and I highly recommend it. The driver had a great knowledge of the island.

I still have more photos and movie clips to go through. Thursday morning started out very nice weatherise so I took a final walk around the area about 3 hours before the ferry was to leave for the mainland. By the time it was time to leave the wind had picked up from the south. The water was choppy and you could tell that the nasty weather coming up the coast was approaching. It has been windy since late yesterday afternoon and a whole bunch of rain, which has just started as of this writing ( Friday at 1:20 in the afternoon) is on it's way.

I haven't even unpacked yet. Oh Beth you asked about what I ate. I had a variety of things including a fisherman's platter, which consists of scallops, haddock, clams, onion rings, fries, cole slaw and tartar sauce. It's all deep fried, which is not very healthy but it sure was good. Various omelets in the mornings. Some Jamaican food including Jamaican bean soup, but the best meal I had was at the most famous restaurant on the island. The Black Dog. It is a seafood restaurant right on the shoreline in Vineyard Haven but one of the specials was a 3 cheese ravioli in some kind of white sauce with prosciutto and mushrooms. Just spectacular and as good as any dish I've had in any fine Italian restaurant and there are many in the Boston area including the North End of Boston. Just make sure you go out to eat dinner fairly early because just about everything in the off season closes at 8 pm. Yep they roll up the sidewalks and then it gets very quiet. It's a wonderful place to visit. I love it and I'm going back. Maybe in May when the hotel I stayed at, The Pequot, opens it's doors again. Still it appears that September is the best time. The water is warm from absorbing heat all summer and the weather is nice, except for the threat of the odd hurricane. In May the weather is a bit more iffy and the water is cold. 

Ok. That's enough for now.

I'm outta here.